Disregarding for now other concerns (some legit, some not) about the human rights' records of the future host nations, this was a very bad day for freedom of the press and FIFA. You can make pedestrian comparisons to various Western nations' reactions to the latest wikileaks scandal and say "all nations disregard media freedoms," but this is a false moral equivalency. The United States is not Qatar. Vladimir Putin would have already killed several members of the British media if they subjected him to the kind of questioning MPs are expected to answer on a daily basis. Amid more allegations of corruption, FIFA has sent out a startling message: we embrace nations who disregard the fourth estate. Healthy scrutiny by the observing press will be punished, so you'd better get back to writing AP match reports and avoid investigative journalism.

And if you buy the argument that hosting a FIFA World Cup could be an agent for press freedom in the two host nations, the collusion of FIFA for example with the government of General Jorge Vedela, who ensured a flawless 1978 World Cup in part by "dissappearing" suspected Marxist dissidents without any worry of press scrutiny due to heavy state censorship, should put FIFA's record on supporting press freedom to bed. The current FIFA is the monstrous inheritance of Havelange's totalitarian vision of an autocratic, billion-dollar global empire built on the world's helpless love and need for football.

FIFA, is of course no different than many powerful global institutions in that it doesn't like negative press attention. But unlike say the G20, FIFA's executive committee is comprised of unelected representatives who answer to no one except themselves. There is simply no internal mechanism to force FIFA to operate transparently, hence the image, both real and imagined, of a corrupt organization for whom financial quid pro quo's comes before the interests of the global game of soccer.

So it's up to us, and I mean all of us, from lowly bloggers to established sports journos, to force a change in how FIFA operates. I think Jerrad Peters put it best today:

If there’s any upside to Thursday’s World Cup announcements—and you have to look far and wide to find it—it’s that people are finally getting fed up with FIFA. The bidding process was largely perceived as illegitimate, much like an election in Iran or Haiti, and the results were met with as much cynicism as disbelief.

This is a good thing, but it’s still a long haul. FIFA isn’t about to reinvent itself anytime soon, and Blatter will stand for another term as president when his current one expires. But it’s a start. Like the IOC in the previous decade, FIFA will be forced to change—to alter its practices and increase its transparency—if enough people utter “howls of protest.”

We need more BBC Panorama type programmes, not less. We need more scrutiny of our own federations, particularly Jack Warner's CONCACAF. We need to share information on the best way to use the public record as a means to expose what goes on in executive committees and behind closed doors. We need to work together to force FIFA under the light.

You're right that the theory that press freedom will increase in these two countries is just ludicrous. FIFA really has sent a message that it wants to deal with nations that can "control" their media.

About AMSL

While this blog started in December 2007 as a mish-mash on everything from North American Football Fans (NAFFs) to the history of soccer in Toronto, it has recently morphed into a football blog about football blogs, and soccer media in general, with a focus on North America and Canada in particular. It was included in the middle of the Guardian's (arbitrary) list of 100 football blogs to look for in 2011, after James Dart clearly ran out of ideas.

"It turned you into a member of a new community, all brothers together for an hour and a half, for not only had you escaped the clanking machinery of this lesser life, from work, from wages, rent, doles, sick pay, insurance cards, nagging wives, ailing children, bad bosses, idle workmen, but you had escaped with most of your mates and your neighbours, with half the town, cheering together, thumping one another on the shoulders, swapping judgments like Lords of the Earth, having pushed your way through a turnstile into another and altogether more splendid life." J. B. Priestley

About

Richard Whittall writes on football from his hovel in Toronto, Canada. In addition to this site, he also writes the Canadian Soccer history blog, The Spirit of Forsyth. He is a regular contributor the Score's Footy Blog, Canadian Soccer News, and Brian Phillip's unsurpassed Run of Play. His writing has appeared in Toronto Life and the Globe and Mail, and he was a contributor for Brooks Peck's Yahoo! blog Dirty Tackle for the 2010 World Cup. He appeared once on Football Weekly as villasupportgroup.